Lancaster Town Hall recently played host to some very clever nuclear smoke and mirrors from the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the form of a slick travelling exhibition promoting extensive new nuclear build at Heysham. But despite government assurances on display that arrangements exist or will exist for the long term management of radioactive waste generated by Britain’s civil nuclear program, those claims have now been challenged by experts on the issue.
The government recently launched a consultation on the building of new nuclear power stations, which will run until 22 February 2010.
In a letter to the Secretary of State for Energy Ed Miliband, four senior members of the original Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) claim the government is going against recommendations made by their own committee of nuclear waste experts.
“We do not consider it credible to argue that effective arrangements exist or will exist at a generic or a site-specific level for the long-term management of highly active radioactive waste arising from new nuclear build,” they argue.
“CoRWM was also quite clear that its proposals should not apply to new nuclear build – the main concern in the present context is that the proposals might be seized upon as providing a green light for new build, that is far from the case”.
Just to add to the government’s smoke and mirrors on nuclear waste, campaigners against the recently-announced expansion of nuclear energy argue there has been an undemocratic, unjust change to our planning system to push through the building of new power stations.
The Infrastructure and Planning Committee is the result of ‘streamlining’ the planning process, which means that issues like the unsolved nuclear waste problem, safety, health and environment will be excluded from the public’s input into decision making. In other words, community groups, individuals and Non Governmental Organisations could present conclusive evidence that Heysham is on a geological fault line but this would not be considered as relevant by the IPC.
The Infrastructure and Planning Committee was successfully lobbied for by the nuclear industry, which now wants to exclude even the recommendations from government experts.
“Nuclear Power is at the top of the polluting industrial food chain and to claim it as a solution to climate change is the most staggering lie,” argue Radiation Free Lakeland. “We should remember that according to the military it was nuclear power that first blew a hole in the ozone layer – it would be like curing binge drinking by adding arsenic to beer”.
The experience of nuclear countries is that nuclear power does not stop the need for electricity from fossil fuels and it replaces renewables, not oil or coal, in the energy mix. In fact, there is evidence to show that to go nuclear is to increase use of fossil fuel: Nuclear Engineering International Nuclear argues France uses more fossil fuel per capita than the rest of Europe, despite being one of the countries at the forefront of new nuclear power station building in Europe.
Local campaigners against new nuclear stations are continuing the work of Duncan Ball, the former Sellafield foreman and jailed whistleblower who died earlier this year before he was due to be ‘compensated’ by the industry’s Compensation Scheme for Radiation Linked Diseases. He believed that the only way what he described as a “vicious nuclear juggernaut” would be stopped is by everyone of all backgrounds, all tribes to stand together and say a strong and loud “No” to new nuclear and “Yes” to all the diversity of life.
• The government consultation will run until 22 February 2010 and responses are welcomed: there is more information on the plans here on the DECC web site, or send your views via email to: justification@decc.gsi.gov.uk or to the address listed in the consultation document.
• Radiation Free Lakeland web site
Photo: Satori (who says the on-screen message has been ‘synopsised’)